Slashdot Mirror
A Dolphin By Any Other Name
SloppyElvis writes "CNN is reporting that scientists have proven that Dolphins can communicate with each other by name. From the article: 'researchers synthesized signature whistles with the caller's voice features removed and played them to dolphins through an underwater speaker' to which the mammals responded. This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world." Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs.
My parents own a pet store, and move a pair of African Grey Parrots between work and home every day, along with two dogs. The birds not only recognize their own names, but they appropriatly name the dogs when they encounter them. In addition, they can tell them to sit by name and even will give the dogs bits of food in exchange for treats - they appear to do this appropriatly when they want to either cause mischief or gain obedience from the dogs when the dogs are frightening them. The birds also use eachother's names appropriatly - and at the pet store seem to know the difference between these specific dogs and the other similar dogs that they encounter.
Intelligence and symbol identification/use definitely seems to me to be a general phenomenon larger than mammalian life.
It would be interesting to repeat similar experiments with intelligent species of wild birds to see if they generate unique sound identification that they may use to identify third-"persons" non-visually in some way. Most likely birds would use such ability to immitate eachother for social manipulation - but the conclusions of the use of such symbolic proto-language would still be meaningful.
Ryan Fenton
Is it by name in /your/ language? By the article, it seems the dolphins developed their own names, whereas a parrot, while seeming to use names, just has an incredible grasp on learning language protocol (well besides my African Grey saying "OUCH!" /before/ biting /me/...). Yes, it may say, "Polly, do you want a cracker?" but that would be a result of hearing someone else say Polly before speaking to it. Then it's as much a name as a specific hello.
"Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs"
It is interesting to note that whales/dophin have hand bone structure. These mammals evolved from those that were once land animals. As a result the flipper is actually a modified hand structure.
/
I don't know if the video is on taht site, but Alex even understands teh concept of zero...pretty amazing if you ask me
To answer your second question, the answer is probably yes. Not only that, they will develop their own language.
Dolphins communicate by "speaking" their name before every communication, as a way of telling the recipient who said what. Every dolphin has their own name and researchers have known this for ages. I'm surprised that this is "news."
Dolphins can ALSO create rings using their blowhole. They create what is essentially a vortex with perfect buyoncy (sp?). They can be tossed around like toys without "popping" due to the physics of the rings. I've tried to do this with my nose, and I fail every time. This is not a conspiracy.
Dolphins are smart. That's why the Navy hires them.
Bubble ring link: http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html
Most of what my macaw and my parents' african grey falls into this catagory. Obviously, they learned "Hello" and "good morning" because those things are said to them. It is even clear that their understanding of these sounds is different from the literal meaning; our birds will use these comments any time they want to greet you or initiate contact.
What is more interesting is the novel constructions and novel useage; i.e. the new uses they find for an existing word or phrase and the entirely new phrases make by combining words in new ways. Examples:
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
The nambiquara indians in Brazil, when they were isolated, did not use, have or give names to humans. Claude Levi-Strauss studied them and had to define a system of codes for his own use while leaving and documenting their culture.
The use of names is not related to innate linguistic abilities. It's a social construct.
I think I read something of his once (Broca's Brain?) that said the dolphins would have evolved a lot further up the chain of intelligence if they had been able to discover fire.
Makes you wonder how many times they tried before they gave up.
And also why the chimps don't have it yet.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
A friend of mine had a cat with a litter of kittens. He was watching them one day, with the cat on one side of the room and the kittens on the other. The cat made an odd miaow, and one of the kittens got up, crossed the room and recieved a grooming. The cat made a different miaow, and another kitten crossed the room to be cleaned. Same for the rest of the litter.
My friend observed this a number of times and was able to replicate the individual miaows to call individual kittens.
So it seems even cats can have and use individual names.
The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need
The older one makes up new sentences out of words he knows. For example he has adapted the "want a preen" into "want a $X" where X is whatever he wants at the time. He adds the other parrot's name at the beginning, when addressing her. Same with "Can you give me a $X". They also have perfectly understood things like "NO!", "Don't!", "Stop it", and distinguish between "Come here" and "Come there". And as most pets, they're very receptive to body language as well.
... and they're not 2 years old yet.
The funny thing is they use only one of my parakeets' name to address all the parakeets generally, whereas each parakeet recognize its name. Given the obvious visual difference between the little birds, I don't really understand why they call them all with the same name.
They sometimes have heated arguments with each other, in which they use all this vocabulary with the proper tone...
Maybe we deserve this world ?